


What happens

by Nalou



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Deathfic, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 02:43:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10453170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nalou/pseuds/Nalou
Summary: Just after Cuba, Charles understands that he is doomed. Not because of Erik's bullet.Because of the betrayal of his own body.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone.
> 
> This little work is inspired by my own life. I needed to get this out of my system, over a year after the end of the suffering.
> 
> In case you skipped the tags, this is a deathfic. If you don't feel like reading this kind of stuff, please just go on my profile and read something else.  
> If you are living, or have lived this kind of situation and you want someone to talk with about it, contact me. It's important to help each other, to seek people who really understand.
> 
> And, please, if you ever feel that something is wrong with your body, just go and get checked. Don't loose time.
> 
> I love you all.

It all happened because of Erik's departure. He knows it. If he hadn't... if he hadn't left on the beach, he wouldn't be in the place where he is now.

  
Charles feels so much hatred. So much sadness. He has been left alone to deal with the aftermath of the war, while it was not in his abilities. 

  
You see, he lost more than a friend that day. He lost all his hopes for the future, all his faith in humankind...

  
Because the human body is so weak.

  
Being a mutant won't prevent it.

  
That day he had fallen, and never will he get up again. Not because of the bullet, but because of his own brain.

  
...

  
If he is honest with himself, he'll see that it started a while before Cuba.

 

Sometimes, his right hand would feel odd. Like it was a bit asleep. He would change position - maybe he was cutting the blood flow without feeling it - and forget about it.

  
Sometimes, his right foot would stiffen, getting hard to bend, not quite responding. But he would brush it away fast enough.   


  
The bullet had been the catalyst, they said.   
  


It had triggered a seizure, they said.   
  


When he had woken up, he was dressed in nothing but a hospital gown, lying on his back on a too stiff bed, in a too white room.  _ Hospital _ , his mind had provided.

  
He felt weak and exhausted and as if he had been rolled over by a USSR tank. All his body ached, muscles screaming pain as he tried to sit up. He failed. Soon enough he was surrounded by nurses.   
  
And here he is now, still in hospital. Three weeks later. Three weeks and rather than feeling better, he feels worse, if that's even possible. He is bored out of his mind. The visits are scarce, Hank the only one allowed to leave the mansion, as Alex and Sean try hard to keep it afloat.

  
At first, he tries to walk, but soon he finds out that the seizures won't stop and leave him exhausted each time. Soon he finds out his right legs doesn't answer to him anymore. Soon he finds out he can't leave his bed to go to the bathroom, even with help.

  
Soon he feels the shame, the helplessness, the self-loathing.    
  


He is all alone bare from the minds he still hears but he can't reach them, numb with pain medication.   
  


He is all alone and Death has never been so frightening.   
  


He still is alone when he goes through an MRI and a scanner. Still alone when he hears the results.

 

All he wants is to die already.

  
  
But soon they say he can go home. His condition has slightly improved, and he can carefuly put some weight on his leg again.

 

He can go home even if he can barely walk, he'll just have to use a walking stick, and he has appointments not to miss at the hospital.

  
  
He doesn't say anything more to Hank, Alex and Sean. They have other worries, other wounds to lick. They adapt to the presence of the walking stick fast enough, and he diverts their minds when they are about to ask more questions. He can't face them, really, they're just boys, his  _ students _ , and why would he bother them with that?

  
  
...

  
  
The surgeon is sure of himself before the operation. A bit less after Charles wakes up.

  
"It was on the area dedicated to the speech, I couldn't scrape it all without risking serious injuries. But I removed most of it and it's gone to the labs for analysis.". Charles sits through his speech, nonplussed. He can read the oncologist's mind. He knows that the man is trying to sound more optimistic than he really is. He knows he is a time bomb. He fears what his telepathy would become when he loses his head.   
  


He locks himself in his own mind when suffering yet another seizure. He waits for the end.

  
  
...

  
  
As expected, the results are bad. Malignant brain tumor. He had to shave his head before the operation so he won't see his hair fall too much while on chemotherapy. He sees it grow back, thinning patches going off with a brush of his fingers.

  
He spends a lot of time watching his reflexion on the mirror. His round, bald head, making him look younger, as if it couldn't be more sarcastic.

  
His blue eyes don't shine like they did once anymore. The white has turned yellowish, and the long, dark, womanly lids he once had are disappearing.   
  


His cheekbones are like razorblades, now. He has lost weight. Erik always said he was getting on the rounder side of the shape. He is not anymore.

 

Erik hasn't said anything since his departure. Nor Raven. Thinking about them always hurts Charles so much. He feels abandoned, left alone, in a time he shouldn't. In a time he should see everyone he loves before it's too late.   
  
Months pass and he gets worse and worse. The wheelchair has soon replaced the walking stick. A nurse comes everyday to take care of him, bath him and dress him for the day. He is so thin she easily lifts him from his bed to the tub and back to the wheelchair. He vomits every food he enjoyed dearly in the past. He manages to drink tea and eat little bits of fresh fruits.

  
His right leg is barely moving. He struggles to keep his arm from giving up too.

  
  
And just one day, in the middle of a discussion with Hank as they are seated on the south terrace of the estate, he stutters and cough, swallowing thick saliva as he tries to breath.

  
He waits a bit in order to calm down and finish his sentence, but finds out he can't.

  
His body is shutting down and he has just lost the ability to talk.

  
  
...

  
  
If Charles had succeeded to maintain a facade since the beginning of his disease, he can't do it anymore.   
  


The talking was the last string that bound him to the outside world without burying himself into someone's mind. He doesn't have the same  _ finesse _ as he used to while controlling his telepathy, so he just keeps it to the bare minimum. He trains everyday to write with his left hand, as the right one can't support a pen anymore.   
  
He is isolated and so, so tired of living a life like this one. They owe him a quick death, after all he did, after all he endured - the death of his father when he was nine, his mother's drinking habit and remarriage to Kurt Marko. The torture he suffered from him and his son, Caïn - after all, he never gave up, setting his school for mutants, now in ruins except for what the boys manage to save, he saved Raven, and Erik, and so many others from hatred, from death.   
  
He is selfish, he needs to be. He wants to die. He is just an empty shell, now. Every morning when he wakes up he wonders why his heart is still beating while his brain has decidedly given up on him.

  
  
...

  
  
The estate has changed so much when Erik sets a foot on its gravel entryway. It looks abandoned. But he knows from good sources that they are still there. What he doesn't know is what is waiting for him, inside.

  
He finds Hank at the entry, the beast had surely sensed him coming. He isn't surprised by the cold greeting he gets. But when he asks for Charles, the man's face crumples up. He starts to worry. Asks again. And is granted his wish after so long.

  
Hank takes him to Charles' old study on the ground floor, where they used to play chess while drinking expensive whisky, where they talked so much he never felt so close to someone again.   
  
But the place has changed so much he is not sure to recognize it. It's full with a medical bed, a wheelchair, and stuff he remembers to be for sick people.

  
It takes a good time for him to see Charles. He is lying still on the bed, barely recognizable. He has lost a good number of pounds, and his hair is gone. He looks ill - worse than that, even.   
  


Erik sees a ghost of the man he once knew.   
  


He can't understand why the sight pains him so much.   
  


He gets a bit closer, hoping for a reaction, but Charles doesn't move, barely blinks as he looks at the ceiling. Charles seems so fragile it freaks him out.   
  


He tries to call him, to get his attention, but fails, and turns to Hank with blatant fear.   
  


Hank then explains that Charles has lost a lot of things. His ability to walk, to move, to write. But most of all his ability to talk. It's more and more difficult to talk to him with his gift. He is getting closer to the end.   
  
So Erik makes Hank leave them alone. He cries as he comes closer to Charles, to the man he abandoned without understanding the consequences, to the man he loves even if it took him so long to realize it.   
  
He sits on the edge of the bed, takes Charles' left hand in his, tries to say something. But nothing would come.   
  


He curses himself as he remembers Charles won't be able to answer him.

 

So he puts Charles' cold hand on his knee as he reaches for his helmet - Magneto's helmet - and for the first time since his departure, removes it in the presence of someone else.   
  


He is waiting for the discrete arriving of Charles' mind into his own, but nothing comes.   
  


His throat constricted, he nudges the body lying limply next to him.   
  
It takes time but he manages to get Charles' attention, his eyes only moving to watch him, tired, so tired, and Erik wants to laugh as much as he wants to cry at the irony of the situation.   
  


He came for a truce, and is instead getting this view of the strongest man he knows - he used to know.   
  
Charles' features soften, as though he is relieved to see Erik, and maybe he is, after all. His eyes lose their focus from time to time, but they always come back to him, inevitable blue orbs.   
  
Erik feels Charles reaching for him with his telepathy, and he dives for the contact between them, craved.   
  


Charles' inner voice is like himself - a ghost. But he can hear clearly what he says then, even if it's only a whisper reaching for his soul.

  
  
_ I'm glad to see you, my friend. Thank you for coming back. _

  
  
Erik's grip tightens on Charles' hand as his breath grows shallower. It's with tears he thought would never fall down his cheeks again that he accompanies Charles in his very last travel, trapping his last breath outtake in his own bleeding heart.


End file.
